Toy products serve multiple purposes. On the one hand, a toy should captivate a child's attention, and retain the child's interest and attention for an extended period. Yet it is also desirable that the toy provide an educational or learning experience for the child. Towards the combination of such ends, there have been developed numerous toys which, while hopefully being of interest to the child, may also impart to the child an educational experience, such as the application of concepts of mathematics, of word meanings and spelling, memory development, and the like.
One popular subject matter for toys which have educational value is music. A toy which generates or plays back musical sounds or notes is both popular with a child and may be perceived as having educational value, as it familiarizes a child with the arts and may instill in the child an appreciation for an enjoyment of music.
There exist a wide variety of sound and tone-generating toys. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,341,140 of Jul. 27, 1982 to Ishida discloses a baton-like apparatus which allows the playback of a pre-recorded melody on a note-by-note basis in accordance with the motion of the baton. Such an apparatus, however, does not allow creativity on the part of the user in that it provides no mechanism for development of an original melody.
It is accordingly a purpose of the present invention to provide a sound-generating toy which allows the user to create original melodies by the generation of a series of tones.
A further purpose of the present invention is to provide a music-generating apparatus in the form of a baton which allows an original melody to be generated in accordance with baton motion.
Still a further purpose of the present invention is to provide a toy of the aforementioned type which allows the generation of original sound strings and the storage thereof for subsequent playback.
Yet another purpose of the present invention is to provide a toy of the aforementioned type which can generate sounds of different voices and the like in response to differing directions of motion for the device.